1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet feeding unit which can feed a sheet to an image forming apparatus from outside, and to an image forming system including the sheet feeding unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, an image forming apparatus is known which can be connected to a mass storage sheet feeding apparatus which stores a large quantity of sheets in order to reduce a number of a replenishment of sheets and to improve productivity or the like, when an image is formed on the large quantity of sheets. In particular, in an image forming apparatus such as a copier which is installed on a floor, an image forming system is often configured by connecting the mass storage sheet feeding apparatus (side deck) to a side of an image forming apparatus.
In recent years, various types of image forming apparatuses having different performance in productivity or printing accuracy are available, and thus, these image forming apparatuses have various sizes and configurations. Therefore, if one type of the mass storage sheet feeding apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as a “sheet feeding apparatus”) is generally used to various types of image forming apparatuses, in some cases, a position of a receiving port in the image forming apparatuses which receives the sheet supplied from the sheet feeding apparatus is different depending on the image forming apparatuses and the sheet feeding apparatus is not able to connecting to the image forming apparatuses.
Therefore Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-326655 discloses an image forming system in which a connection unit is disposed between the sheet feeding apparatus and the image forming apparatus, in order to convey the sheet discharged from the sheet feeding apparatus to the receiving port of various types of image forming apparatuses having different position of the receiving port for the sheet. By the way, generally, if a sheet jam occurs in the image forming system, a sheet stays in the image forming system, therefore it is necessary to remove the staying sheet. And it is desired that the sheet staying in the image forming system is efficiently removed in the image forming system providing the connection unit between the image forming apparatus and the sheet feeding apparatus.